Splice, don't cable tie! Unimpressed customer.
I don’t like leaving negative reviews, but sometimes you just have no choice.
I placed an order for 30 metres of 10 mm anchor rope with a thimble spliced at one end on Thursday (17/7) lunchtime. First the good points: Delivery was extremely fast; the order arrived on Saturday.
I am also pleased with the rope itself, but that is where the good points end.
The rope arrived with cable ties around the thimble, which I removed, assuming that they had been put on just to keep everything in place during the splicing. I've had many ropes with spliced thimbles in the past and have never received one held together with cable ties.
When I checked the splicing I saw that the thimble was very loose, so loose that I could easily fit a finger between the thimble and rope. In fact the thimble came out of the rope loop altogether when I was checking the length of the rope. It was obvious at this point that the cable ties were in fact doing the job of holding the rope and thimble together, rather than the rope hugging the thimble snugly, as should have been the case.
As the rope was clearly not fit for purpose I contacted the seller and (politely) explained the situation. I sent 2 photos of the thimble (obviously loosely) within the loop, and another of the thimble sitting next to the rope loop. In my email I asked how we should proceed.
I obviously didn't expect a reply over the weekend (I sent it on Saturday,) but I was very impressed to receive a reply at 9.07 am on Monday.
The seller asked if there had been zip ties connecting the thimble to the rope, and if there had, did I remove them?
This was the point where I stopped being impressed.
At 9.40 am I replied that yes, there were 3 cable ties which I removed, as I assumed they had been put on just to hold everything together while it was being spliced. I mentioned that I have had many ropes with spliced thimbles in the past and none have ever been held together by cable ties. I pointed out that there were no cable ties in the product photos on his website.
I reiterated, how do we proceed?
At 11.50 am I emailed again, as I now seemed to be experiencing 'radio silence'! I apologised for my impatience, asked if he could please let me know what's happening, (as I need the rope soon.) I pointed out that the rope was not fit for purpose and suggested he might have another look at the photos l'd sent. I said that If he was in any doubt he could do an internet search on spliced thimbles and he would see that there was not a single cable tie in sight! I suggested that perhaps a small partial refund may be in order to cover the cost of getting the rope respliced locally, and could he please let me know how he was going to resolve this. I ended my message by requesting that he please email me whatever he decides, even if he wasn't going to do anything, which I think was very reasonable of me since I was virtually giving him an 'out’. At this point just an email saying sorry for the inconvenience would have gone a long way!
It has now been 24 hours since I last emailed him and I've still had no response, and I think it's obvious I'm not going to get one. It's bad enough getting mediocre splicing workmanship, but I find it incredible that some companies think it makes good business sense to just ignore you when you have an issue, (that is their fault.) It’s short sighted as guess who I won’t be buying rope from in the future?! Anyone can pack an item and post it out; the acid test for me is how a company deals with an unhappy customer. Suffice to say this company have absolutely failed that test. I do not, and will not recommend them to anyone, and I will never be buying anything from them again.
17 July 2025
Unprompted review